The present invention concerns methods and devices for construction of permanent foundations and anchorage for presituated modular structures, such as mobile homes, modular housing, other proprietary systems, and conventional site-built construction, these methods and devices offering significant cost improvements over existing practices.
The present invention particularly concerns a pre-hung corrugated foundation wall panel that is cast-in-place with footing concrete, and has a simple, low-cost, and reliable interlocking feature connecting adjacent panels.
The present invention is an improvement to the manufacture of cast-in-situ foundation wall panels which saves manufacturing cost by using a simple, single cut and bend anchorage to in-situ concrete.
This invention improves the resulting panel by providing horizontal stiffness and straightening for the bottom portion of the panel without the attachment of any other element. The process which creates the panel anchorage to concrete also creates adjacent panel connecting elements.
This invention saves on foundation panel installation cost and improves quality by providing reliable secure attachment of adjacent panels using just the panels themselves.
The degree of reliability and security to this adjacent panel attachment came as a genuine surprise to the inventor, with the ramification that this type of attachment can be successfully utilized for adjacent corrugated panels not having anything to do with foundation walls.
The example of panel anchorage and interconnection described here is but a specific embodiment of the idea of bending the panel bottom portion and using some of that material to interconnect adjacent panels. The interconnection can be made by simply crimping or twisting together the free material at each end of the anchorage element, for example. Or the excess material can be fashioned to wedge one appendage behind another in other configurations not shown here, as another example.
The object of this invention is to:
(1) Provide a structural, interlockable foundation wall panel, which can be pre-hung from a modular structure, floor framing grid or the like, and then have its lower edge cast with in-situ concrete to permanently provide support and anchorage. With this method, the presence of the modular structure is utilized optimally to define the foundation geometry, and to hold structural elements in place until in-situ concrete affixes those elements permanently.
(2) Provide a means of utilizing readily available decking panels, having normal factory straight-cut ends, for a new use as interlocking, multi-sectional foundation walls. These foundation walls can be weight bearing panels, shear panels, or combination bearing and shear panels, without the need for any other foundation wall framing members or like structure for those same foundation walls.
(3) Provide an anchorage design of the panels where a simple cut and bend process provides anchorage, horizontal straightening of panel bottoms, and interlocking mechanism between panels.